Reflection

The café is a place where, while enjoying organic tea and higashi (traditional Japanese dry sweets) served in glass vessels that reflect the surrounding light and landscape, visitors can quietly contemplate themselves alongside the emotions, memories, and impressions awakened through encounters with the artworks.
Beyond the large windows, the greenery of the garden unfolds, allowing the scenery that flows seamlessly from the architecture into the landscape to become an integral part of the spatial experience.
Preserving the natural materials of the existing building, the renewed interior introduces earth and acrylic as new elements. Earthen plaster finishes, crafted by hand, create soft shadows and a sense of depth. Lighting filtered through bubble-infused acrylic casts a gentle glow, shifting subtly with the changing daylight, seasons, and passage of time.
As materials of contrasting qualities interact with light, multiple layers of time quietly emerge within the space, creating an atmosphere of subtle resonance.
At the museum shop, visitors can also purchase a wider selection of works and objects that celebrate the unique qualities of natural materials, including the glassware used in the café.

The café space is positioned as an extension of the experience that flows from the garden into the architecture.

Beyond the large windows, the greenery of the garden unfolds, and the landscape itself becomes part of the space.

The materials used continue the lineage of natural materials that have long inhabited the existing architecture, while newly incorporating earth and acrylic. The plaster finish using earth creates soft shadows and a sense of depth.

Lighting passes gently through bubble-infused acrylic, casting a soft glow that shifts with natural light and changes across time and seasons. Through the layering of materials with differing qualities, multiple temporal strata quietly reside within the space.

Glass Vessels Reflecting Light and Landscape

All visitors (excluding tickets without the drink service) are offered organic tea and organic sweets served in the museum’s original “Ojyu Box” vessels, created by glass artist Peter Ivy.

Set within a wooden frame, the glass functions like a window that captures fragments of landscape—a space for layering time and scenery.

Slight undulations from hand-blown glass, faint transparency, and quietly suspended air bubbles within the material.

These elements gently receive natural light, reflecting the greenery of the garden and the shifting seasons, and generating fleeting, one-of-a-kind moments within the space.

A cup of tea woven from mountain mist, the scent of earth, and human craft

We serve organic tea cultivated in the Nakaisamurai district of Tenryū Village, Nagano Prefecture, accompanied by Peter Ivy’s Ojyu Box vessels.

Grown in tea fields spread across steep mountain slopes, Nakaisamurai tea is nurtured amid morning mist. The leaves are carefully hand-picked one by one, preserving a culture of craftsmanship passed down through generations.

Born from the collaboration of nature and human hands, this tea is characterized by its gentle sweetness, clear flavor, and lingering aftertaste.

After viewing the artworks, we invite you to enjoy a quiet moment with tea while gazing out at the garden—deepening the afterglow of your time at the museum.

In addition, Ayurvedic teas and alcoholic beverages are also available upon request.

The café is accessible only to visitors with museum admission tickets.